In recent years, it has been possible to form high-definition images with an inkjet recording system having a relatively-simple structure. Such an inkjet recording system has become more and more versatile.
Such an inkjet recording system, however, has difficulty ejecting ink whose viscosity is not low. As a result, when image formation is performed on a recording medium that does not absorb ink well, the phenomena called bleed and beading occur. The bleed is a phenomenon where inks are mixed between dots of different colors, and the beading is a phenomenon where the shades of the same color look like beads.
In view of this, the problems have been solved with an image forming device including a head to eject ink whose viscosity is lowered at a high temperature, a transfer drum on which surface image formation is performed when the ink is ejected, a heater to heat the transfer drum, a roller to nip a recording medium with the transfer drum so as to apply pressure to the recording medium, and a heater to heat a recording medium before the medium contacts the transfer drum (see Patent Literature 1, for example).
In this image forming device, when ink is ejected onto the transfer drum, the transfer drum cools the ink dots, which leads to an increase in the viscosity of the ink and leads to prevention of bleed and beading. The ink dots which form an image on the surface of the transfer drum are heated with the heater by the time the ink dots come into contact with a recording medium. A formed image of ink is transferred to a recording medium at the position where the recording medium is pressed against the transfer drum when the recording medium is heated with the heater.